Twice
by Besina
Summary: Sherlock has sustained a head injury; John is helping him cope. Hurt/comfort, friendship, slash, fluff.


Sherlock's eyes snapped open. John was lying next to, half on top of him, one hand cradling his cheek, and kissing him thoroughly. It wasn't frantic, but slow, careful, deliberate...relaxing. Still not knowing what to think or how this had come about, he quickly sat up and skittered backward, crab-like, across the bed, wedging himself between the headboard and the furthest bedside table, staring at John, terrified - not so much that he'd been snogging his best friend and blogger, though that was concerning, but more so that he hadn't a hint of how he'd gotten there.

John's eyes had widened, worry playing across them. He sat up but didn't try to move any closer to the detective, whose respiration and flitting eyes gave tell to his current state.

"Sherlock?" he asked, voice low and calm, "Are you with me? Can you tell me what's going on?"

Sherlock mutely shook his head, eyes still scanning the room, making deductions as quickly as he could, but still coming up mostly blank. Panic, unusual in a Holmes, was beginning to set in.

John took a deep breath, sat up a little straighter, folding his legs in front of him and wiped a hand down over his face, still worry-plagued.

"You know your name though, right?" John's eyebrow inched up a bit.

"Ys," came the detective's barely audible, sibilant reply as his eyes continued scanning the room.

"Ok, Sherlock. I need you to try to slow your breathing. We both know hyperventilating isn't going to help you, right?"

Sherlock nodded, closed his eyes momentarily and focused on his respiration. After he'd managed to get a bit of a handle on it, they snapped back open and focused on John.

"Okay, that's better. Now, do you know who I am? Where you are?"

A terse nod was the response, but John waited patiently. "And that is?"

"John Watson, 221B Baker Street, your bedroom, apparently."

"What year?"

Sherlock moved to open his mouth, but words failed him. He hadn't a clue. His eyes locked onto John's and for the first time in his life, John saw terror rise behind them.

"It's okay, it's okay," he soothed, "it's temporary. We'll soon get you sorted."

"John," Sherlock croaked, "what's happened? What's happened to me?"

John desperately wanted to move to comfort his friend, but considering what Sherlock had 'woken up' to, didn't dare move. "Last case?"

"Double murder, Oxfordshire. John?..."

"You've lost about four months. Took a blow to the head a while back while we were chasing a rather dexterous thief through the back alleys near the flat. You were concussed fairly badly. Short stay at the hospital as we couldn't force you to stay any longer and I've been keeping an eye on you since. You've had a few brief bouts of amnesia, like tonight, but they don't last long and you've been having fewer and fewer. Stay with me, it'll come back to you."

Sherlock swallowed hard. "My mind, John..."

"Compromised, yes, permanently damaged? Not much, if any. Shall I call Mycroft?"

"Why?"

"Oddly, his presence seems to calm you down when you're worried about your brain."

Sherlock considered. Mycroft didn't tend to mince words. If there was something permanently damaged, Mycroft would tell him. That would be reassuring; however, if Mycroft's presence had calmed him down in the past, that would seem to indicate that there was nothing permanently wrong. Sherlock knew himself - if there had been, things would have been thrown, obscenities shouted and the scene described as anything but 'calm'.

He shook his head.

"How many times has this happened now? And when did the injury first occur?"

John smiled, happy to see some semblance of the detective returning. A frightened Sherlock was frankly terrifying, an inquisitive one, much better. "This would be the fifth time now, since returning from the hospital. The injury was nearly a month ago, and yes, they got him."

The corners of Sherlock's mouth turned up at John's prescience, but then again, he wondered how many times he might have already asked these questions, and the smile, what there was of it, faded.

John spotted it, clambered off the bed, held up a finger for Sherlock to wait, and quickly trotted down the stairs. Sherlock heard some papers being shuffled, then John's step jogging back up the stairwell. He sat back down on the edge of the bed and handed over a sheaf of papers for Sherlock to look through. They were already dog-eared, covered in sticky notes or with writing in the margins.

"It's about the type of trauma you received. You were a absolute menace in the hospital until we got hold of all the medical literature we could," John explained. Most of the notes are from then, but you've looked at them a few times since.

Sherlock nodded, looking over the mess of papers and his notes. "John?" he murmured.

"Yeah, Sherlock?"

"How long does this last, usually?"

"In general?"

"With me. How long before I start to recall things?"

"It varies. Usually less than an hour but you've gone a day before."

"Mm."

Sherlock pressed his lips together, flipped through the pages once more, paying the most attention to his own notes, raised his eyes to John once more and asked, "You're sure, then? No major or long term damage? Mycroft's sure anyway... No way to speed up recovery?"

John chuckled under his breath, how Sherlock sussed out Mycroft's opinion was proof enough to him, then grimaced helplessly at the detective, shrugging. "Sorry, wish there was. You're on the mend though, this won't be happening forever, Sherlock."

"Indeed." Sherlock's brows knitted themselves together, and he scooted himself back into the middle of the bed and lay down. "In that case, continue."

"Wha..what?" John shook his head, disbelievingly.

"Just now, John, I 'came-to' as it were, and you were lying atop me, kissing me. If I hadn't been so disoriented, I might have found the experience enjoyable. I can only assume that in the months that have passed since the Oxfordshire murders and now, we somehow moved our relationship into one with a physical side to it. That seems unusual, but not unpleasant.

"Even with all the confusion, my body maintained a physical response to those attentions for quite some time. As to have gotten to that stage of a relationship, all my objections and concerns would have had to be addressed, I am assuming that they have been dealt with adequately and any objections quelled. Therefore, continue."

John sat next to him, blinking down into the detective's face.

"John," stated Sherlock, "how often does one get to be seduced for the first time, twice?"

John smiled down into Sherlock's face then lowered himself down alongside the detective, cupping his cheek in his hand. "Git," he muttered, "the first time, you seduced me."

He then silenced the shocked detective by kissing the daylights out of him.


End file.
